Mad World
by mitzipler22
Summary: As if being hurled back into time wasn't enough, now she has to retake her N.E.W.T.s and hunt horcruxes as a muggleborn slytherin. Yes, Hermione decided, somebody up there has really got in it for her. Too bad they hadn't counted on a boy with an impossible smirk to help her.


It was a Summer's morning the day Hermione Granger vanished. She left without so much as a note, a fierce hug that told Harry she will back, because he was the Harry Potter and she was Hemione Granger, and it just wasn't right for them to be apart. No, she left just an empty apartment, a drowsy cat and an unsettling pit in his stomach.

At first, he scratched his head and decided she must had have left for work and simply didn't have the time to notify him. There was plenty of residue anguish and malaise in the wizarding world, after all, and if Harry knew Hermione as well as he did, she would never sit by her comfy armchair, by a desk that screamed respectable importance, and watch the world struggle and writhe in its torment. She was just like him, all brave and no sense. Perhaps she had some in first year, when she marched up to them and reprimanded him and Ron for their foolishness, but by the time the war was over, so was her reasonableness. Now she was just as stubborn and all tough as any other Gryffindor.

As for Harry, he let the world deal with their own problems. He had done his part, wrest his way up and conquered, and now it was time for him to step back and take charge of his own life. He wasn't going to let his name and scar rule his life any longer. He was an auror, of course, but he no longer felt the weight of the world's troubles on his shoulders—or if he did, he shrugged it off. If Hermione wanted to run off and dive waist-deep into the world's troubles, he wasn't going to stop her.

But days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Post-warfare got worse; reports of terrorism from past Death Eaters poured from news outlets and everyone was on edge, and time certainly didn't stop and wait for Hermione Granger to satisfy her hero-complex. It wasn't until a year flew by did Harry Potter asked what everyone was thinking: Where was Hermione Granger?

It was unlike her to not send word within a month, nevermind a year; it was unlike her to go off on her own; it was _all_ so unlike her. And Harry, damn him and his need for independence and space, decided for the very thing he loathed: he was going to find her, and then he was going force her to come home, consent be damned. He would bind her legs and arms if he had to. But she was coming home because everyone needed her. Blasted, he needed her.

Ron was all for it, of course. He had been pestering him for months now, and Harry had exploded on his best mate more than a few times. Times were rough, and Ron hardly needed to remind him of the blank air for a Hermione not there. "Find her, then," he had said, defeat and a lace of anger in his tone. "But she won't be happy with you."

Ron, his mouth twisted into a grim line and eyes downcast, came back a month later, and Harry put a hand on his shoulder and closed his eyes. He realized it, then.

She was gone. And she wasn't coming back for a long while.

This fact cemented itself when Christmas rolled by and messily wrapped presents with a sprawled Hermione Granger laid untouched. And it wasn't only the Weasleys and Harry Potter that sat by the fireplace, pondering the mystery that is the brilliant curly-haired witch.

Hermione Granger had simply vanished, and the wizarding hadn't a clue where she went.

.

If she were being entirely honest, Hermione felt restless. Voldemort was dead. She knew this because she saw Harry strike him down with a torn scream and a blinding red light, and then Voldemort was no more. She wouldn't believe it otherwise. But the same paranoia that nibbled on her nerves during nights spent under a starry sky and a cursed necklace in hand persisted. It was reminiscent of the clutter in her bedroom. As it steadily grew and grew, her unease scurried not far behind.

It was ridiculous, really. The war was over, and now all that was left was detritus and its foul stunk. And here she was, glancing around with a hand lingering just above her wand. She wondered if it was the persistent paranoia bedevilled anyone else, or if it was just her.

She had seen Malfoy. Only once, in court, just after the wizarding president announced, voice grave and sullied and didn't nearly radiate the joy he ought to have had, the war was over. (The bastard, he was probably hoping Voldemort won.)

He looked awful. His hair didn't have the impossible shine and slickness; instead, it flopped over his eyebrows, and Hermione could have sworn she saw a few loose curls here and there. His eyes looked like Sirius's, which meant they looked pretty much like spoiled grey and dead. But the thing that made her inhale sharply was his expression. There wasn't any smug little smirks or a condescending glean to his eyes, and there most definitely wasn't anything happy either. No, his face was blank, stiff and pale, and he looked like he was going to be sick. Like a reanimated corpse.

Merlin, did that make her nervous. Hermione could never imagine the day she _wanted_ Malfoy to prance around and call her whatever horrible name his mind could cook up (though, he was often unimaginative and stuck to mudblood like water to paper), but there was something inexplicably wrong with his blank stare and reticence.

Ron, of course, found it extraordinarily amusing, though Hermione couldn't understand why. He pranced around like the new Malfoy and paraded his freedom, a smug expression on his face, and Hermione dearly wanted to grab him by the collar, force him to sit down and tell him to shove it. She loved Ron. But oh merlin, was he an idiot.

Harry, on the other hand, was far more acceptable. Though, he seemed too quiet. She supposed he was still wallowing in his tumble of shame and rage. He blamed himself for everyone's deaths; thought he should had have finished Riddle earlier, that though he had _won_ , he had also failed. It was ridiculously absurd, and Hermione wanted to scream at him, but once he starts to have these silly notations in his head, they simmer and brew, and Hermione knows her words mean nothing to his deaf ears and overburdened heart. So, she lets it run its course. Not because she wants to—oh, merlin no—but he is her best-friend and has been since she had been a bushy-haired first-year with a bit too much frigidness, and years of experience have taught her that the best thing she can do for her friend is to be there for him, no matter how much he will push her away, and let him realise by himself that he is human too, and the world's problems are not his.

When Malfoy was declared innocent (but not without one-hundred house of community service and a hefty fee), Ron paled, Hermione released her clenched fists, and Harry frowned, looking at his clasped hands laid in his lap. She remembered Malfoy's gaze snapping to the Minister of Magic, his mouth slightly agape, and it was the first time in the hour she had seen humanity grace itself on the young man's face. Perhaps the first time she had ever seen surprise on his haughty, narrow features.

Then another familiar face appeared. This one was just as numb looking as Malfoy, but there was a small smile on plump lips, and Hermione thought it to be bittersweet. Her eyes were puffy and red, some smudged mascara inking her skin, and Hermione presumed she had been crying not too long ago. Innocent, the Minister of Magic had declared, and she wore the same shock as Malfoy had.

Hermione was beginning to wonder what exactly they thought would happen.

When she turned, Hermione realised she had been looking at Pansy. It hadn't been long since she had seen her—only a month, in fact, when she had offered Harry to Voldemort—but she looked magnitudes different with a slack posture, a gaunt makeup-smudged face and a paucity of scornful sneers.

Then she saw two more familiar faces—Blaise and Theo. They were passed as innocent too. Then the uglier, has a little more of an anger problem death eaters prowled the steps to the stand, and the lifetime Azkaban charges gushed out.

By the time the clock strike four, all the death eaters had been dealt with, and Hermione stifled a reluctant sigh. The faces were all too familiar, the pain still too raw and fleshy, and she struggled to meet the eyes of the particularly gruesome death eaters. All it took was one look, and there it was again: the frantic beat of heart, her jelly legs, utter and absolute exhaustion. She despised them. Oh, she _loathed_ them, wanted to curse them into their grave and revive them to curse them to their graves again. But there was a sliver of something tight and painful, and it slowly trailed the length of her spine. It felt like fear.

Hermione Granger, Gryffindor and Harry Potter's partner in crime, _feared_.

She realised, as she looked at their downcast eyes and trembling form, they also feared. The war was creeping on them too, and the opposition side brought unwanted nerves and strangled voices just as it did for the victors.

No, the post-war paranoia indiscriminately badgered everyone, victor or loser.

She hadn't seen any death eaters for a long while after that.

Perhaps they were around, filling whatever unsavoury and taxing jobs that would have them. But Hermione had thrown herself into her work, desperately and urgently, and she wasn't so much aware of the growing bags under her eyes and the filth clinging to her clothes. There was still so much to be done. Still so much to solve. To fix. And Hermione was going to fix it, fix it all, and everything else be damned.

Of course, Ron and Harry were everything to her. They were like missing limbs, and she didn't know what she would do without them. But they shortly disappeared like everyone else. They were off having children, smiling and laughing, and Hermione just couldn't be with them; couldn't be like that. There was a still a war going on, though not nearly as obvious as before, and still loose ends to be tied, and Hermione couldn't just forget it like they apparently could.

No, she was going to save the wizarding world that opened its doors nine years ago and engulfed her in its marvellous. She was certain of it.

And she had been close to it too; had discovered cure that would seemingly fix all the world's problems. But there was a bright, green and blinding light, not unlike the killing curse, and Hermione felt her breath stolen from her, her mind frozen in a suspended moment, her arms and legs limp, and she _knew_ that whatever got her, it was going to change things. She wasn't sure _what_ exactly, but she was certain that things would change—for better or worse, that she didn't know.

She could only hope that whatever it is, it wouldn't be as hellish as the chaotic mess that is her life.

.

 **A/N: A bit too much angst for my tastes, but it just seems to pour out. The next chapters will be lighter, I promise. Anyway, I'm really excited for this fanfic, but be warned, this is my first time attempting a fic. (Which I'm sure you could already tell; lol I tried, okay. Writing looks way more easy than it is.) Many thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy reading as much as I wrote it!**

 **Until next time,  
** **mitzipler22**


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